Dear Year 3 and parents,

Welcome back. We hope you have had a lovely summer break.

English Our core text for Autumn One is the adventure novel The Wild Robot. This will be used to both inspire the children’s own adventure writing and scene setting. We will study the audience, purpose and features of each text type and this book will also be used in our guided reading sessions. Our spelling, punctuation and grammar focus for the term will be on conjunctions, simple sentences, compound sentences, complex sentences and understanding the comma rule. Some children in the class will revisit previous phonics learning and all children will receive direct teaching of spelling and practise their handwriting.

Building on this, the children will write their own exciting narratives based on The Wild Robot, focusing closely on how to set the scene through descriptive language, varied sentence structures, and carefully chosen vocabulary to create atmosphere. They will also develop their understanding of dialogue, stage directions and dramatic conventions by writing and performing playscripts inspired by the story. In Autumn Two, our attention will turn to poetry as we explore The Lost Words, where children will study the power of imagery, rhythm and word choice to create their own evocative poems. To finish the term, the children will apply all of their learning about character, setting and language features to write a moving narrative based on One Christmas Wish.

The children will continue to have the opportunity to take a book from the school library each week and will take part in a variety of different lessons to teach them specific comprehension skills and to promote a love of reading for pleasure, thereby supporting their learning.

Maths/Times Tables Please support your child with the rapid recall of times table facts, both multiplication and division. We will be practising times tables regularly in school this year. All the children have access to Times Tables Rockstars and their login details can be found in their Reading Record. Our maths topics for this term are place value and addition and subtraction. In Autumn Two, we will study area and multiplication and division.

Spelling There will be a weekly spelling homework on the Spelling Shed website. Again, the children have their login details in their Reading Record. Please encourage them to log in and practise. There will be a half-termly test of twenty words taken at random from the previous six weeks’ lists. The children will be encouraged to revise the previous term’s spellings and to focus on high frequency words that are being misspelled.

Other subjects To begin this exciting year the children will be exploring volcanoes as part of our topic ‘Fire and Ice’. They will learn where volcanoes are found around the world, how they form and about the structure of the Earth, in addition to tectonic plates and The Ring of Fire. They will

also consider why some people might want to live near a volcano due to the impacts they have on the environment, along with the animals and plants found nearby. They will learn to research a specific volcano and present their knowledge. Following this, children will learn about earthquakes, their causes and impact on the areas affected. In Art, we will study and explore collage with the children creating their own volcano inspired pieces. In Science, we will be studying Rocks and Fossils. In RE, we will be learning about Hinduism and how Hindus express their belief about God.

Reading at Home The children will continue to be able to change their reading book as necessary. We will check to ensure that the books they are choosing are sufficiently challenging and cover a variety of genres. Please continue to read to your child and to listen to them read as often as possible and complete the Reading Record. Re-reading passages, discussing the text, highlighting interesting or unknown vocabulary, and talking around the subject are all very worthwhile activities.

Homework Homework will continue to be set on a weekly basis, usually on a Friday. Please ask your child to explain the homework to you, it will be a Maths and Spelling challenge on Ed Shed or a Learning Log activity. It is important that all children complete the homework. Please email me if your child is experiencing any difficulties with the completion of the homework.

PE Our PE days this term are Wednesday (swimming) and Thursday (this may change due to weather etc.) Please ensure that PE kit is brought into school on a Monday and it will go home on a Friday. We have PE lessons inside and outside, please make sure children have the correct kit for each session (t-shirt, shorts, joggers, jumper, socks and trainers) including spare socks for the girls if they are wearing tights. Please make sure your child has a sun hat, a raincoat and a water bottle in school every day.

Thank you for your support.

Mrs Chaplin and Mrs Brogan